Lower Twin and Snag Lakes Loop Trail

Lower Twin and Snag Lakes Loop Trail is a 14.6 mile moderately trafficked loop trail located near Westwood, California that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from June until October.

DISTANCE

14.6 miles

ELEVATION GAIN

1656 feet

ROUTE TYPE

Loop

backpacking

birding

camping

hiking

nature trips

walking

forest

views

wild flowers

wildlife

snow

no dogs

We recently did a varient of this loop on a three-night backpacking trip. We left from Summit Lake, went by the Twin Lakes and stopped at Rainbow Lake. Then we went to Butte lake via Cinder Cone (neither of which is a part of the trail this page is for). The next day we went to Snag lake and the net day we left. We did not go to Horseshoe Lake and the loop we did was 25 or 26 miles.
The trail from Summit to Rainbow is a fairly easy five miles and I posted a review with photos of that on the Rainbow Lake trail page.
The trail around Snag Lake is pretty flat but is covered in scores of downed trees which must be gone over, around or under. There are also two tricky creek crossings.
On our travels we saw a Yellow-Bellied Marmot, many Black Tailed Deer, Bald Eagles, Western Tanagers, Mountain Bluebirds, American Goldfinches, Killdeer, Sindpipers (and a sandpiper nest), and more.
This was a great location to hike some long miles since the trails are all pretty gentle. The hike out of Snag Lake toward Rainbow Lake is strenuous for a mile but otherwise the whole hike was easy for my children. We saw very few other people on the trails and we saw no other backpackers. The lakes were peaceful and our trip was relaxing. We will have many wonderful memories from this hike.